GLOBAL MATTERS

BE IT TO SAVE MONEY ON MANUFACTURING GOODS, to find more affordable service options in areas like information technology, or simply to profit from foreign funds, as Americans we’ve been looking beyond our shores for years.

Despite recent setbacks created by global economic uncertainties, the trend remains strong, though it is no longer the no-brainer that it once was.

U.S. investors, for example, didn’t reap the anticipated benefit from going global last year, as many foreign-stock funds tanked. Yet, despite a strengthening of the dollar, which reduced the value of overseas holdings, many money managers—and other assorted financial types who are still employed on Wall Street—remain convinced that overseas markets hold promise for patient investors.

IT, computing, and consumer electronics continue to lead the offshore outsourcing practice among U.S. manufacturers. But in his enlightening article this month, “A Shift in Engineering Offshore,” Associate Editor Alan Brown tells us that companies like Caterpillar, General Electric, and IBM have begun outsourcing engineering to offshore sites as well. This process is in its relative infancy, and it is yet unclear what impact the global recession will have on the burgeoning movement, but the issue bears careful monitoring.

Although the U.S. retains substantial engineering strength, “offshore engineers are bright, highly motivated, and have climbed the skill ladder rapidly,” Brown says.

If you believe in conspiracy theories, you’ll agree with Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He told Brown that U.S. firms will announce large layoffs and blame it on the recession, “but the cuts will be unevenly distributed, so what looks like a layoff is really a geographic redistribution of a firm’s workforce.”

Global commerce is enabled by vast technical resources across the world distributed through an array of cyber networks that, like water through a funnel, channel explicit information to specific end users. Much like our natural resources, technology resources must be monitored carefully to ensure reliability.

If a more heated debate exists over the merits of outsourcing, it is the debate over sustainable manufacturing and engineering practices, and whether these are issues technologists should concern themselves with seriously. This issue of Mechanical Engineering brings fodder for both debates, as we unveil the results of a first-ever survey gauging engineers’ opinions on matters of green engineering and manufacturing.

We teamed up with the California engineering software firm, Autodesk, to survey ASME members. The thousands who responded by e-mail had a lot to say. I invite you to read the results of the ASME/Autodesk Sustainability Survey in this issue.

The choices of whether to outsource engineering offshore or to support “green” manufacturing initiatives seem to come down to financials. But beneath the surface of economics lie factors making these global matters even more complex. Conversations about these important topics reveal a lot about the state of engineering and its future. I encourage you to be heard.

—John G. Falcioni, Editor-in-Chief
He can be reached by e-mail at falcionij@asme.org